‘The Newsroom’ Recap: ‘News Night with Will McAvoy’

The show jumps ahead about 6 months: It’s March 16, 2012. This episode takes place entirely during Will’s show.

It’s “News Night” plus the rest of the comings and goings of the newsroom. This is the first episode this season that takes place in real-time. (To give you news references, Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman and the former Rutgers students, Dharun Ravi/Tyler Clementi, are mentioned). This episode is chaotic and doesn’t have a flow or consistent feel to it, but perhaps that is done on purpose since newsrooms are chaotic. Also worth noting: Maggie still has her blonde hair (which means she didn’t cut it off yet) but is spiraling out of control, and Jim is in the control room (which means Jerry was sent back to D.C.).

As Will is about to go on air he receives a call from his dad, which he ignores.

In fact, Will is a bit mad about it – Will can’t pick up because he’s on air and he is at the same time every night. Viewers get the feeling that there’s a strained relationship between Will and his dad. During a commercial break, Will checks his voicemail and learns his dad is in the E.R. because of a mild heart attack; Will is his dad’s emergency contact even though he’s 1,500 miles away.

News breaks: two bombs were detonated in government buildings in Damascus, Syria. Maggie is busy taking IQ test online, but alerts Jim that George Zimmerman’s 911 tape is finally available to the press. For some reason, Jim stands over her shoulder while the tape downloads, so Maggie sarcastically compliments Hallie’s latest article on Sandra Fluke. “I’m looking forward to her next piece: ‘White Men, I Think I Hate Them’.”

Meanwhile, a Syrian woman (at the W in Manhattan) calls the newsroom to say her husband (calling from Syria) is trapped under a building and nobody is rescuing him. She forwards the husband’s call to the newsroom and the man says “Thank God,” a red flag for Jim. Jim tells Mackenzie about the situation and asks her “Do you want to let me do some good?” and she agrees. He monitors the Syrian phone call and the Zimmerman download at the same time, mostly spending with Maggie. Maggie circles back to the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke issue, bringing up the issue of sex and how women (like her) who like sex are perceived in a negative light. (Recall Rush Limbaugh’s comment?). Jim gently brings up Maggie’s drinking and after-work activities; she tells him that what she does when she leaves the building isn’t any of his concern.

Jim pulls Gary aside to ask him “How long did it take you to straighten out after Africa?” Gary says, “I wasn’t holding a kid.”

The tape is at 98% downloaded! Maggie asks Jim how long he’s wanted to say something about her after-work activities. She mentions that her home life isn’t great, especially since she has to make sure she comes home after Lisa (her ex-friend/roommate/landlord) comes home. Jim tells her to move; he also tells her that it’s been six months and she’s “unpredictable, moody, unpleasant and begging for a fight.” Maggie asks if there’s a problem with her performance at work – Jim says no. Well, we all know what’s coming…

Neal tells Don something about Worldnetdaily’s post about Simon Weingarten accepting a speaking fee from the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence. Don rushes into his office to make a phone call to someone named Philip, saying “We got to fix this.”

There’s bad news for Sloan and she’s in the office with Charlie and Reese. Some nude pictures were posted online and Reese wants to fire her because she broke rules. Sloan reveals that she was seeing an AIG consultant for about six weeks and over Christmas they got a hotel suite and had some fun. But Sloan broke up with him day before; as revenge he posted the photos online. Because Sloan gave the guy the camera and posed for the photos willingly, it wasn’t illegal, Reese says. The photos are everywhere—they even have their own Facebook page and Sloan is trending No. 1 on twitter.

Sloan hides in Don’s office because she’s humiliated. She was blindsided by the photos, she thought the AIG analyst was really nice and she didn’t think the breakup was bad. She and Don bond. “I am feeling so intensely something that I don’t know what it is.” Sloan tells Don that she’s not going to do her interview that night—Elliott should do it. (Don pauses to make another call to Philip, saying that Weingarten shouldn’t have this bogus statement on his résumé because “I’m dry.”). Don tells Sloan that the humiliation is going to turn into rage. Don asks Sloan why she keeps dating men like this; Sloan says it’s not the right time to ask. Don tells Sloan, “You’re impressive” and then breaks the moment to call Philip again. He tells Sloan what happened: he ran into a Republican, Philip Adams, and they talked about Simon Weingarten, who could be nominated for solicitor general if the job opened. Don wanted to know if Weingarten would have any trouble getting confirmed even though he spoke to the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence. Adams made a story out of Don’s joke. Sloan tells Don to call the news organization directly to get the story taken down.

Together they find a senior editor’s number (his name is Munch) and call; Sloan has to promise not to laugh. (Hello Mr. Munch). Don explains he was being hyperbolic, wants the story taken down and for Worldnetdaily to run a retraction. Munch says they have the claim from multiple sources, saying Don’s “joke was right on the money.” Don loses it and yells that he made up the organization: There is no such thing as the Righteous Daughters of Jihadi Excellence. An Internet search leads Munch to 17 entries—Don says it’s because of fake story, fat ass. Sloan wisely hangs up the call and says Neal should write the story, include this phone call and post it on ACN’s website. She leaves the office with more dignity than she had when she entered and as she walks through the newsroom, she and Charlie do a quick hand grab of support.

Charlie gets a phone call that requires him to tell his secretary to go downstairs and “take him somewhere.” Who’s “him”? Charlie fetches “him:” a secret agent for the ONI. A Google search leads me to believe the ONI as it’s referred to here isn’t a Japanese demon, but the Office of Naval Intelligence. And Charlie doesn’t want him to be seen coming into ACN’s headquarters. This meeting is “about” a computer center in the mountains of Utah; there are four 25,000 square-foot rooms full of servers and the ability to hold yottabytes of data. (A yottabyte is 1 trillion terabytes). The agent doesn’t want ACN to do a story on it and add another high-value target to the terrorists list. He says the world won’t be ended by a bomb, it will be ended by a disgruntled kid who hacks into a system, opens dams and canals, or changes the pressure in oil pipelines and causes huge explosions in heavily populated areas.

(Interesting and sadly, perhaps true). But wait, the agent doesn’t actually care about the computers in Utah (and neither do viewers), he really cares about Jerry Dantana and his seven-month investigation into a “black op called Genoa.” Ah. So THAT’S why he’s here.

Charlie says Jerry was chasing a rumor; he figured Jerry was low enough on the totem pole that he wouldn’t raise any red flags. Charlie won’t tell the secret agent what the story is, but the agent wisely guesses. The agent says that if true, there would be riots in the Middle East and in the U.S.; America would lose any moral authority; he says the Special Forces are under a lot of pressure and it would be nice to change the way the media perceives them. He gives Charlie a scenario: If Charlie’s son was a marine, (as Charlie was), and was taken and was hours away from being publicly beheaded, would Charlie have a problem with an extraction using any means necessary? Charlie says “your hypothetical bares a remarkable resemblance to the rumor we’ve been chasing.” “Does it?” the agent asks.

“You can’t have most of the world living in the 21st century and the rest of the world living in the 8th century, unless they’re going to limit themselves to 8th century weapons,” the agent explains. He says “that area of the world” has a big problem that’s not addressed in Article One of the Geneva Conventions (the document that establishes the standards of international law and treatment of wartime prisoners). The agent refers to “that area” as a “big f*cking crazy problem.” He keeps asking Charlie “wouldn’t you do it?” Charlie keeps replying, “Do what?” The agent “officially” gives Charlie a piece of paper with “information on yottabytes of memory” and leaves.

Charlie pulls Mackenzie out of the production room and shows her the paper, which doesn’t contain information on yottabytes: it’s basically a manifest for Operation Genoa. It’s the first piece of paper they have confirming there was Operation Genoa. An interesting Charlie tidbit, he tells Mackenzie he sang in an acapella group in college and when the group wanted to expense its weed, the members put it on the expense report and called it “chickens.” He says the manifest lists some easily recognizable ammunition and weaponry, as well as MX76. Charlie says MX76 is code for sarin gas; he called three quarter-masters and MX76 doesn’t exist in military terms. Charlie is convinced that Operation Genoa is a true story and he wants to prove it. He won’t tell Mackenzie where he got the manifest.

In other news, Neal says there’s a tweet about Will that he won’t like. Will ran into a writer for The Post at lunch and since he didn’t recognize her, he blew her off. So she tweeted that she was snubbed by @willmcavoy; because she has a ton of followers it was picked up by Buzzfeed. Will is upset and Mackenzie tries to calm him down, saying that “fundamentally small people are going to try to raise their profile by standing on your neck.” Mackenzie wants Will to focus on what matters, advising him to call his father during the next break and leave a message for his dad to get when he leaves the E.R. Neal tells Mackenzie #newsnight led him to another tweet with the same hashtag from their hair and makeup room—and that one isn’t great either.

The tweet is from Jesse, the head of the Rutgers Gay/Straight Alliance. He didn’t know Tyler Clementi (the student who committed suicide after his roommate secretly spied on him). Mackenzie tells him not to speak for everyone, just from his own experience. Then she asks him about his tweet: “Watch #newsnight 8 p.m. my TV debut, gonna make some waves #parentspleasedonthateme.” Mackenzie asks if he was planning on coming out on the show.” He is – it’s the only way he could tell his parents without being in the same room as them. Mackenzie tells him he can’t take the most intimate moment of someone’s life and use it for entertainment. Jesse says he’s voluntarily doing it (whereas Tyler’s outing wasn’t voluntary); Mackenzie says it’s not that kind of show.

Mackenzie returns to Will during another commercial break; she presses him to leave a message for his father, saying “start to turn this around.” Will is more concerned about the negative tweets from the Post woman. Mackenzie wants Will to forget about the 3 tweets: one about being snubbed, one about the lost battle for women, and the third “You just lost a viewer.” This lady really knows how to get to Will.

Things are starting to come together; Jim has two other associate producers talking with the man in Syria; Maggie finally has the downloaded Zimmerman tape and is playing it for Mackenzie and they are trying to cut it down to less than five minutes—not an easy task. Jim is working on the text; Basically, we’re at the point where the Sanford Police Department was under pressure to release Zimmerman’s 911 call and part-time mayor of Sanford, Jeff Triplett, finally did. Will is interviewing a lawyer from the NAACP; the lawyer points out that it’s clear the attack was racially motivated and Will disagrees. The lawyer says Martin may not have even known that Zimmerman was watching him and he was carrying a bag of Skittles. Will says Zimmerman should get the benefit of the doubt, the lawyer counters that Martin never got any benefit of the doubt.

Neal realizes Maggie cut the 911 operator’s question: “Is he white, black or Hispanic?” and made it sound like Zimmerman just announced Martin’s race. Maggie tells Charlie and Mackenzie; their reaction isn’t good.

The repercussion: Mackenzie tells Jesse that his portion of the program has to be cut; they aired the badly edited tape of Zimmerman’s call and they need the space to air the full tape at the end of the show. Jesse doesn’t believe Mackenzie and thinks it’s because he said he was going to come out. Jesse says “people are going to know about this” and Mackenzie says if he’s going to tweet about it, blame Will because he’s the famous one. Jesse asks “Why are you acting like such a b*tch?” Mackenzie admits she was going to cut the segment anyway since Will isn’t Maury Povich. Jesse counters that the idea made Mackenzie uncomfortable and Tyler was robbed of his right to come out to the world on his own terms. Mackenzie says Jesse is full of it, that all he wants to do is bathe is Tyler’s “reflective tragedy” even though Jesse SAID he didn’t even know Tyler. Mackenzie says Jesse isn’t “honoring” Tyler by tweeting about coming out in front of 1.5 million strangers. She also tells him he would have gotten the reaction he wanted and she did him a favor.

We finally wrap up the Syrian caller hoax: 1. Syrians don’t say “Thank God.” 2. Nobody with their last name is registered at the W. 3. When the building in Damascus fell, it took the cell tower with it. 4. They have software that unblocks cellphone numbers and that’s why the police are knocking on the callers’ door. The end.

Sloan goes to the AIG building (just a block away) and asks to talk to Scott. She doesn’t actually talk; she knees him in the groin and punches him in the mouth. She takes a photo with her phone and says “I made it to the rage phase.” Scott tries to run after Sloan but instead runs into Don. “No, no,” he says and he puts his hand on Scott’s chest to stop him and follows Sloan out. Well played, Sloan.

Jim asks Maggie why she cut the question. She claims she didn’t hear it and she was under pressure. Jim pointedly asks, “It was just for time? You weren’t trying to see justice done?” Maggie gets really mad and points out that Jim was brought back to NYC because he gave his interview with Romney to Hallie. Then she backs up and says she had six minutes to cut a five minute piece of audio down to 25 seconds. She also explains her promiscuous behavior—she’s afraid to sleep alone at night so she goes out.

Will and Mackenzie wrap it up: Mackenzie doesn’t want Will to give a huge apology but thinks he should point out the specific mistake in the Zimmerman phone-call cut; Mackenzie wants to tell him about the “Bonnie and Clyde” of prank callers; Will is worried about Sloan, but Mackenzie says everything is fine. Mackenzie tries to cheer Will up, telling him that men his dad’s age have a recovery rate of 93% but Will tells her that his father died of a ventricular fibulation. When Will called during the last commercial break (to leave the message for his father to hear later), his sister answered. Will has been interviewing the NCAAP lawyer without batting an eye. But when the show comes back on air, Will is silent for a little too long before saying “Well, I guess it’s just us now” and mentioning the correction for the Trayvon Martin story. The humanization of Will McAvoy continues.

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